


our possible life

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [311]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Haircuts, Mithrim Christmas, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Processing Trauma, Self-Esteem Issues, Trauma Buddies, unrequited something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:00:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27002392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: On Christmas Eve, Maedhros asks Estrela for a favor.(“Don’t look at me so.”She is surprised by that. It warms her like a mouthful of whiskey. “You can…you can tell, how I look at you?”)
Relationships: Arien & Maedhros | Maitimo
Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [311]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300685
Comments: 7
Kudos: 20





	our possible life

**Author's Note:**

> Of course it was a disaster.  
> That unbearable, dearest secret  
> has always been a disaster.  
> The danger when we try to leave.  
> Going over and over afterward  
> what we should have done  
> instead of what we did.  
> But for those short times  
> we seemed to be alive. Misled,  
> misused, lied to and cheated,  
> certainly. Still, for that  
> little while, we visited  
> our possible life.
> 
> \- Jack Gilbert, Going There

“I’ll go,” she tells Fingon. He is tucked between his brother and sister on one of the long benches that bracket Mithrim’s broad mess table. Supper is finished, but Turgon and Aredhel are both angled towards him, engaging his attention with affectionate greed.

Estrela, in contrast, is unfettered. Beren is with Sticks and Frog, helping them wind their garlands around the brave green fir-tree. No one else needs her, here. Even Gwindor is deep in conversation with Fingolfin. Their heads bob in agreement one after the other.

As Fingon looks startled first, then guilty, she adds, “I shall sit with him, until you return.”

It is Christmas Eve. The grief that would rise in her heart, if she were to reflect long and alone upon all that this portends, will abate if she brings her heart to Russandol.

It is a selfish motive, maybe.

_He never thinks me selfish._

_She_ is guilty over that.

When she raps at the door, Maglor opens it with unusual eagerness. “Estrela!” he says. “Come in. I have—I hoped to speak to Curufin at supper, and—”

Dazed, she nods and slips by him. He says,

“I shall return quite promptly, Maitimo,” and dashes off.

He does not return promptly.

“That was strange,” says Russandol, plucking at his buttons. He has begun to wear a shirt again. The effect is…startling. Every stitch of clothing, every cant of expression, as they relate to him, have an undeniable effect on Estrela’s person.

(She must stifle these murmurings with the same practicality that has kept her alive.)

“Why is it strange?” she inquires, taking the chair to his left, and tucking one leg beneath her to sit more comfortably. It has been so long since she wore skirts that she acts quite like a man in her trousers.

“Curufin and Maglor don’t…well they never _did_ have much to do with each other. Maybe that has changed.” He sounds a little lost. Of course, he cannot know all that has changed.

“It is like that in large families, I understand,” she says carefully. She has nothing to do with her hands at present; an oversight. “Little…little friendships.”

“Little friendships,” he echoes. “Oh, I’ve a thousand stories.” But he doesn’t tell them.

Estrela is conscious of the scar through her lips tonight, itching and twisting. Sometimes it is the only thing that she knows of herself. She must remember that here, if she is a friend and a comforter (not a woman), she can put even that aside.

“Are you coming out tomorrow?” she asks. She does not mention _Christmas_. He knows—he must know.

He sighs, his own features twisting in a grimace that cannot make him unbeautiful, to her. “I have raised everyone’s dear and silly hopes,” he says. “What a spectacle I shall make, Estrela.”

“They will be glad,” she says quietly. “Just—just glad. It won’t be…it won’t be anything more…”

“More _ghoulish_ than that? I cannot disagree with you on the grounds of _experience…_ ” He stops. “No. That isn’t fair of me. I mustn’t act as if you only know the diseased ulcers of humanity.”

Another smile, there, but it is still a grimace.

Estrela says, calmly, “That is an ugly way to talk about your fellow man.”

He looks like Maglor, for a moment, in the way he opens his mouth. “You make me feel like a whinger.”

“I don’t mean to.”

“I know. And that means you are just _better_.” He huffs a sigh, then glances dangerously up at her through his lashes, his chin to his chest. “Don’t look at me so.”

She is surprised by that. It warms her like a mouthful of whiskey. “You can…you can tell, how I look at you?”

(So much for stifling.)

“Yes, of course.” His voice is almost forceful. “Sometimes you are feeling sorry for me, and sometimes you are laughing at me, and sometimes you are being severe on me, when I am being…ungrateful.”

“I don’t think you’re ungrateful.” She passes a hand over her lips, brushing the ridges. “But—do you really not want to go? You could speak to Fingon. I know that he would support—”

“I do. I do want.”

“Oh.”

“It’s just…” His hand flattens on the bedspread beside him. She cannot ever see the long, capable fingers without mourning, shocked, those lost. That is the trouble, meeting a man with two hands. You never even think—

“I can speak frankly to you,” he says. “They are all trying so hard to bring me happiness. I must give it back to them. Over and over again, until they no longer need…until they can rest a little, rather than pining for me.”

“You mean Fingon and your brothers?”

“Yes. You and Gwindor, too, though I doubt either of you has a particular interest in my attendance at a dinner.”

She cannot tell him how much improved he is. It would frighten him. But his color is better. His skin is not _so_ thin over his bones. The bruises are healing; the deeper wounds are healing. And he speaks like a man again, a man with memories and friends.

“Gwindor hates gathering with strangers,” she says. “And yet, I think they all like him very much.”

“Of course they do.”

“Of course they do.” Her turn to echo, now.

“When they…when they strung me up, to make an example of me—” His voice catches.

She holds her breath. She will let him say what he must, but the pain of hearing it is no less acute for the safety of four friendly walls around them.

“I knew that Haldar was dead, and it was my fault by half. I knew that Gothmog would beat me until—until he tired of it, or until _I_ was dead. I really thought he might kill me there. But all I—my _fear_ , then, was that you—that the others—would _see_. Isn’t that shameful? I was more afraid of that than dying.”

“It is awful to be seen,” she whispers, “When you do not want it.”

And it is awful to be invisible, but that is not his grief.

He continues, a little too gaily, “No one is going to out me as a thieving, murdering slut tomorrow, I suppose. Not unless Turgon claims the floor.” If it is a joke, she is not ready to laugh.

“I think,” she says deliberately, “That they will greet you warmly. And then everyone will sit and give thanks and stuff their mouths with food. Can you bear _that_?’

“With the privilege of a shirt on my back? I’d hope so.” But he sighs.

“Caranthir will wash your nicest shirt, tonight, if we ask him,” she promises.

“Caranthir will wash everything clean through, with his diligence.” His eyes dart about the room, as if he is suddenly willing to look at everything but her. “There is…a favor.” His eyes meet hers. “I shouldn’t ask you favors.”

“Tell me what it is, before you refuse it for me.”

“You don’t still happen to have a knife, lying about, do you? Like the one I was too much of a fool to barter for?” He proves his earlier claim, then, that he can read her features for her moods. “I’m not going to do anything rash, Estrela. I only wondered if you would cut my hair.”

“Your…hair.”

His eyebrows ripple. “It’s disgusting. If I’m to face everyone, I shouldn’t be a scarecrow, should I? Tisn’t one of the traditional Yuletide decorations.”

Her heart racing, she thinks back. Back to one of their first encounters, when she tried to wash his blood-matted head and felt him going mad beneath her touch. And then again, how Celegorm had railed at her for suggesting— “I can borrow scissors,” she says, “From Tabitha. Or maybe Wachiwi, since she seems to have a good many odds and ends in her things. And I can certainly cut your hair, Russandol, but nobody will…”

He interrupts her. Raises his hand, even, as if he is putting both mind and body to a task. “I used to be a frightful dandy, as I’ve told you. But there was _some_ merit beneath the vain folly. Not _my_ merit, exactly—”

“You would never acknowledge your own merit,” she says, without intending the words to leave her lips.

He coughs, and recovers. “I mean,” he says softly, “It is important to present oneself neatly, when possible. It instills confidence…in Fingon’s work, at least. If Mithrim does not yet approve of the Finwean clan as a whole, I might use…use that ghoulish human instinct to help them along.”

“Russandol…”

“I can ask Fingon,” he says quickly. “Fingon would do it.”

“No, that isn’t it—I only wanted to be certain that you wanted it. For yourself, I mean.”

“I don’t know if I want it for myself,” he answers, tilting his head. “At least, not wholly. I never know. I suppose if I could, I would wish for a thousand things before I gave a thought to my hair. But since it is all I have that can be _made_ presentable…”

“I will find scissors,” she agrees, rising. “And a comb.”

Very quiet, now: “I have a comb.”

“Oh.” For a moment, she foolishly believed that he meant the one she had given to him. But of course not. That is gone. Gone, and broken.

“It’s in my things,” he says, still in that quiet voice, the one that sounds like he is concealing a hurt from her that he does not want probed or bandaged. “Caranthir brought them in a sack and—well, I don’t often look through them, for what use are they to a man with—”

“I’ll find it.” She forestalls him from speaking, bitterly, of his hand.

In the sack beneath the bed, she expected to find something simple and practical, suited to a man. Wood or bone, unembellished. What she finds instead is an ornate tortoiseshell piece, carved with tiny flowers. A woman’s comb.

“It’s lovely,” Estrela murmurs, because she feels some praise is warranted. Turning it in her hand, she dares to glance at him.

“It has been a long time since a woman has held it,” he says, the lines of his face drawn tight. Then—“I was too hasty, though. I…Maglor said he will be back promptly, and Fingon—”

_You don’t want them to see._

“I can come back in the night,” she says. “But you will be resting then.”

“Trying to.” His lips twitch.

“Or,” she says, “If you would prefer that we not be disturbed, I can go and ask Fingon to keep everyone out.”

He blanches, as if she had proposed a dangerous, preposterous plan. “Fingon—”

“He won’t mind, Russandol.”

“I…” He bites his lip, lowers his chin, all the little tells that she learned from him when they were in darkness together. “I know he would say he did not. But…it would be laughable, to be found indulging my vanity, and it is _more_ laughable, to have them…to have them know that I am trying to hide it.”

Estrela takes her seat again. She holds the comb in her lap. In the secrecy of her thoughts, she has pieced together a little of his life before. A childhood spent minding his brothers, and loving and guiding them as capably as he does Sticks and Frog. Time in the city with cousins, who became his loyal friends. A journey west that went all wrong; his father dead, and his mother never spoken of.

She knows, too, that Gothmog shot his mother in the arm.

To this faceless woman, perhaps, the comb belonged.

“Russandol,” she says, smiling as tenderly as her ruined mouth can at his drawn, nervous face. “I will need water to wash your hair, if you allow me. And scissors to cut it. On this errand I can tell Fingon plainly that you would like privacy. No talk of vanity or shame. When I last left him, he was with Aredhel and his brother—Turgon, is that not his name? They were enjoying his company. It will not alarm him, to think that this door is shut. And as for Maglor…”

“Maglor cannot be stopped from coming and going as he pleases,” Russandol says, but he is calmer, now. “Very well. I’ll wait for you.”

He is so like a child, sometimes, when he is not living like a hero or dying like a man.

Estrela moves quickly about her business. She obtains a pair of sewing shears from Judith, one of Nora’s more sociable companions, and finds Fingon almost where she left him. With Turgon and Aredhel, that is, though they have huddled beside the fire now: sitting cross-legged, watching the flames.

Fingon looks up at once, his plaits flying over his shoulders, when Estrela calls his name.

“What is it?” He makes a move to rise.

“He’s well,” she says. “He’s well.” Then, in a lower tone, since Turgon is close by and watching them skeptically, “He has agreed to let me wash his hair. But you know, I think, how that…distresses him. Would you keep the room clear of any visitors?”

He nods. “Maglor’s disappeared. Celegorm and Caranthir, I don’t expect till the morrow…and the rest will do as I ask.”

“I shan’t be long,” she says, nodding. “Thank you.”

She taps the door with her foot instead of knocking, for her hands are full. She has a basin under one arm, a pail of warm water hung over the other, and the scissors clutched in her hand. When he invites her to enter, she fumbles the latch and splashes a little water at her feet. But she nearly drops the pail entirely when she finds him sitting in one of the chairs.

His right arm is in his lap; his left hand is twined in the ends of his hair. His cheeks are flushed.

“I thought I could do a little of work for you,” he says.

Estrela sets the basin and the pail down carefully.

“You did not fall?”

“Give me a little credit,” he says, and she is relieved to see a twinkle in his eye. “I have almost two good legs, and one hand. Enough to get me between a bed and a chair. Christ, it’s a pity I’ve outlived both my grandfathers. We could have been old men together.”

She wants to know about his grandfathers. She wants to know everything about him. She tucks a lock of her own hair behind her ear—ordinarily, she would think _it_ wanted cutting, but now she intends to let it grow.

“Russandol.” (Carefully.) “I know that this will not be easy for you. I will stop whenever you wish.”

“So that I can look like a sheep that escaped in the middle of shearing? Now _that_ would be something.”

“I can finish the shearing after the sheep is calm,” she says patiently. “But I must begin, first.” She considers. “Now, will you answer a question on your honor?”

He glances sharply at her. “Maybe.”

“Will it hurt your ribs to lean back? I will need to hold the basin under your hair to wash it.”

In answer, he slides forward a little, props one leg on the bed—the right one—and tosses his head back. It is a dramatic pose, and she is torn between amusement and something else.

“They’re not bad,” he says, of his ribs. “For what they are.”

“I will be hasty,” she promises. What else can she do?

It is a very different ordeal than when she tried to scrub filth and dried blood out of his hair in the cramped thrall quarters. Here and now, she is able to throw a sheet over his shoulders, and she can (if she lets herself) gaze upon his clean, upturned face. The hollows around his eyes are always tired, but the bruising there is all but gone—the bruising and the dreadful swelling. Whoever struck him, again and again, as it seemed at the time, did not ruin him.

Not for Estrela. 

He shuts his eyes when she pours the water over and above his brow; his jaw tightens.

“Russandol,” she asks, worrying, “Is it too much?”

“No.”

“Would it help to tell me, what troubles you?”

“No.” His voice is rather smaller, this time.

Balancing the basin on one knee, steadying it with her forearms, Estrela works quickly. Her muscles ache in the strange pose; her right foot, mirroring his, almost, is hooked in the rungs of the chair. She lathers the soap and rubs it in the roots of his hair. She is surprised to find strands of white streaked beneath the water-darkened auburn, parting under her fingers.

She says nothing of it. His scalp is warm when she grazes it with her fingertips. His trust in her—honest or not, particular or not—is a heavy gift to carry.

She pours the rest of the water through his hair, rinsing the soap out from both the roots and the matted ends. Then she sets the basin down. Some of it has spilled, but it doesn’t matter. She wrings his hair in a clean rag and steps back. “You may sit up again,” she says.

It is tempting to offer something selfishly hopeful, to say, _That was not so bad, was it?_

“When you cut it,” he murmurs, a little out of breath—his ribs, of course—“Could you face me? I want to remember that it’s you.”

A hush settles in Estrela’s soul. _Ah_ , she thinks. _What you asked for_ —

“I will do my best,” she says. She has not been a woman in so long that it should be easy to forget now; easy enough to stand between his knees and tip his chin up with her hand. 

He isn’t breathing. She isn’t a woman, to him. She must remember that he is trying very hard to even see her as herself.

“Russandol,” she says, with the comb that might be his mother’s clutched in her hand, “I think one of us should talk.”

“You,” he whispers.

She lifts a hank of hair, pinching it in her fingers so that it will not hurt him when the tines of the comb catch in the snarls.

“I have met some friends,” she says. She doesn’t know what to say—there is so much. It is simplest to start in Mithrim. “At least, I think they are friends. Wachiwi and Aredhel play with Sticks and Frog, and they talk to me. They tell me about their travels, and they show me how to—do things I had forgotten.”

“Aredhel is a brick,” Russandol says. He has shut his eyes again. “I don’t know Wachiwi well, but since Fingon thinks well of her—and she of him—”

“Wachiwi seems like a very good-hearted girl,” Estrela agrees, taking another lock of hair and combing it straight. She will likely never do this again; he will have so little need of her touch, in future, that she ought to savor the sacred duty while she can.

 _You are hurting him_ , she chides herself. _You are hurting him, because all such tenderness hurts him. Do not revel in it._

“Fingon is rarely in love.” Russandol shudders lightly under her hand. “Back ho—in the city, he was very careful in the company he kept.” He opens his eyes, and smiles, the grin half-hidden by the back of her hand as she moves a strand away from his forehead. “Except, of course, that he kept company with _me_.”

“You are his favorite cousin,” she says, because she knows it to be true. “And as I have cause to know, friends are hard to come by.”

He blinks. “The world is so unjust to you.”

“And not to you?” He told her to talk, so she will: she will make her little stand. “It is always so with you, Russandol. You always tell me how I am wronged.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I am sorry that it hurts you to have your hair washed and dressed,” she says, as gently as she can. She wishes she had her old voice, at times like these. She wishes that the ugliness of her face did not also muddle her speaking.

“It wasn’t the worst thing they did to me. Not by far.”

“But it…it was still cruel.” If it were anyone else—anyone less _favored_ , by the tormentors they share—she would assume that he was roughly treated by the nameless guards, shorn like a prisoner for a joke.

She knows better.

“Well, yes,” he says. “Yes, whatever I may think of myself, they _were_ cruel.”

“How much do you want cut?” she asks, leaving the monsters aside for a moment.

“All of it? But that would be dreadful for the intended purpose.”

“I can leave it…” She tries to think of a point of comparison. “A little longer than your brother Caranthir’s, I think. I wonder if he cuts his own?”

“Likely. Celegorm and Maglor have rather gone to seed, haven’t they?”

“They must like to imitate you.”

“You flatter me, Estrela.”

“I was never a flatterer.”

“Mm.”

She has finished her combing, and his hair, neat and smooth and damp above his brow, is yet another shock. She has been moved by the sight of it before. It was in seeing his hair, dry and alight by a sunray, that she first knew—

“I will begin now, if you still wish it,” she says, reaching for the scissors.

He nods, his eyes following her.

As soon as she twists his forelock round her fingers, he gasps out,

“I could have fought. I _did_ fight, only a few hours later. Saved nothing, of course. Still—I was free. But for a few shackles, I was free.”

To close the blades _now_ seems nigh impossible, but she thinks it will dismay him further if she were to stop. Estrela pushes her tongue against her teeth and snips a straw-like scrap. Russandol, once he has started talking, shows no sign of stopping. With his eyes half-hooded, he speaks, his words tripping over each other.

“I had spent all the night before fearing what trophies they’d take from me. It was…it was my first night that I remembered, you see. I’d been knocked about too much to…it doesn’t matter. And as for taking things from me, they’d already—they’d already begun. But it was—Mairon who snatched up _this_ prize. They bound me to a chair and he—he slashed it all off with a knife while I—oh, fuck. I think I cried. I don’t remember. Isn’t that shameful? But I was so terrified, at first. I was more afraid _then_ than I was when…God. That’s not true. I know I lie a good deal. I always have. Ask Fingon, or don’t, if you still wish to have a shred of respect for me. Ask _Fingolfin_ , and he’ll forgive me so generously that you’ll hate me to my bones.”

She stops. Hesitates; decides. Not with the scissors—she sets those aside. She rests her hands on his shoulders. His face is screwed up, turned from her, and very pale.

“Russandol,” she whispers. “It’s Estrela. Just Estrela.”

“I know.”

“If there is anyone who is not like Mairon,” she says lightly, though the tears are starting in her eye, “It is I. How could I be? He would not have carved himself up.”

Russandol opens his eyes. There are tears there, too. “I’m such a miserable infant,” he says. “Keep on, please.”

She picks up the scissors. She says, “What a shame. Your hair must have been magnificent.”

“I thought so at the time. Years of labor, for naught.” His nose twitches with a sniff. “He has it still, the bastard.”

“I think,” says Estrela, strangely calm, “That they kept my eye. But I could not…keep a close watch on where it went, you understand.”

He barks a laugh, then freezes, his face all written with apology.

“I have had years to be solemn over it, dear,” she says. Her heart beats faster over her own mistake; calling him _dear_ was too much.

“If I _had_ fought then,” he says, “It might have been more satisfying. I might have minded the loss of it less, if they had had to hack at it with a dozen men holding me down. As it was, I gave them no more trouble than an errant schoolboy.”

“You were getting used to the idea.” She drags the comb straight up, letting the tattered edges fan over its teeth.

He repeats after her, “I was getting used to the idea.” Then, with his hand, he flicks away some of the fallen snippets.

There is a little silence. She draws in a breath, as deep as she can, and lets it out again.

He asks, “You are going to let yours grow again?”

She is surprised by his interest. “Yes, I think so. It used to be very long.”

“I can imagine it.”

She clears her throat, stepping to his right so that she can reach the hair above and behind his temple.

“The second time was worse,” he says.

“The second time?” she asks, trimming above his ear. She does her best to touch his skin with the blades as little as possible; he always winces. 

Almost brushing her thigh, the stump of his right arm trembles. “I…” his voice has gone whispery and frail again. “It wasn’t meant to be a punishment, this time. And so it—it was the very worst kind.”

Estrela remembers mercury spilled. She longs to press a hand against his cheek, but she is sure beyond reason that Melkor Bauglir has, in time, done the same.

She says nothing. _Does_ nothing but return to her work at the crown of his head. She is almost finished, there, and should attend to the back, but he wanted her to face him as much as she could.

At present, though, Russandol doesn’t look at her. Doesn’t meet her eyes. _His_ eyes are level with her ribs, but he looks through her.

“I’d given him everything,” he says hoarsely. “I’d…I’d become everything he wanted.”

She tries not to think of what is written on him. Not out of judgement; out of a desire to spare him. She does not judge him for—for anything. She has only mercy, only thanks, only—love—

“He praised me,” he says. “And—and washed me. Then he clipped my hair neat as a barber, and dressed me in fine clothes.” He does not say Bauglir’s name. He does not need to. The scent of pine; the color of mercury. Estrela has had years to be solemn, but never time enough.

She sets the scissors down, and sinks to a crouch. She rests her hands on her knees and looks up at him. Up to his downturned face. He cannot meet her gaze, because of his tears.

“Do you remember the first time I dared speak to you?” Estrela asks.

He nods. Another wince. Is he ashamed of how he shied away from her then? Is he ever free of shame?

“Sticks told me you were a help to her. And later, when I told her to be careful, she said you were not cruel. That you were good.” A pause, to let these words sink in. Then—“Russandol. Sticks is too young and too brave to know how to lie.”

He drags his sleeve—the left arm—over his face, snuffling. “But I know how.”

“And so do I. And so does Gwindor. But children know how to see the truth. They are so vulnerable, aren’t they? They can run, and hide, and watch, but they cannot be their own masters. Even children who were born to better lives than Sticks and Frog, are not quite free.” She takes a chance; makes a guess. “Were you free, as a boy?”

That stills him. He looks almost frightened, now, by a new fear. The tears still run from his eyes.

She takes that as her answer. “I thought I was,” she says. “But now I do not know. I was imprisoned by my own desires, I suppose. Chained to a future that I never reached.”

“You’d hate me if you knew.”

“Why do you keep fighting the belief that I would not? I give that to myself, and you may not take it from me.”

He is silent. She straightens up again.

“He sent you away, to us.” She moves behind him, at last, patting his shoulder lightly so that he will know it is still her. “Why?”

“I made him angry.” He does not protest her movement. She says, anyway,

“Do you mind if I stand here? I will work quickly.”

He drags his hand over his face. “I don’t mind. You won’t be able to see my blubbering, then.”

“You should drink a little water,” she suggests, lifting the hair from the back of his neck in her hand, not even brushing the raised scar-sigil beneath. “Since you have cried out all of it.”

“I’ve always cried a good deal,” he says, seeming a little embarrassed. “Not as much as Maglor, but one makes allowances for poets.”

She leaves the back of his hair almost as long as the crown, in the hopes that it will cover Mairon’s savage mark. “I make allowances for you, too, Russandol.” She brushes the fallen locks off his collar, where the sheet does not reach. “Do not say _too many_ , or I shall be cross.”

“Are you ever cross?”

“Oh, yes.” She remembers how she scolded Gwindor and Lem for their treatment of him. But that is not a pleasant story. “I was a very headstrong girl.”

“I like a headstrong girl,” he murmurs, bending his neck for her.

Estrela is very glad he cannot see her, just then. She combs the damp strands that have tangled again. His hair is very fine, and where it has fallen out, new downy growth, curling like a baby’s over his scalp, begins to thicken it anew. She pats his shoulder with her free hand again when he shivers.

“Do you know, I saw a girl with hair just your color, once,” she says. “But she was Italian. We traveled to Italy, briefly, when I was thirteen.”

“It is rather more acceptable a color there.” His voice is steadier, now. “What with their—Titians.”

“Is it not acceptable in New York?”

He shrugs, then apologizes for shrugging. “I suppose I was considered a persuasive example.”

Since he cannot see her blush, she ventures, in a dry, flat way, “Because you were so very handsome.”

She feels a chuckle shudder through him. “Yes, Estrela. Because I was so very handsome.”

Estrela smiles to herself. Then she says, “I’ve finished, here. May I brush off your neck?”

“Yes.”

She does so. Even in winter, a few freckles remain on his skin, amid the discoloration from the sunburn, which he endured months ago.

Then she comes around the remaining side, his left, and lifts the last of the ragged hair that falls against his ear, his cheek. “We are very close now,” she says. “You’ve done so well.”

That earns her another smile, too small to be a grin, but sweet enough to make her heart ache. “And if I say I have not, you’ll be cross?”

“You are very sharp, Russandol. As sharp as the little ones.”

The last lock comes away under her shears. She stands back, examining her work with the only critical eye she has. His hair is much longer than it was when she first saw him; when it had been—at Bauglir’s hand, as she now knows—cropped very short at the back and sides and combed flat across his head. As it dries, his hair begins to spring up rather like Celegorm’s does when he comes in from walking in the wind. It is full and waving, curling over his brow. It looks thicker than it did, now that the dead parts are gone.

“There,” she says. “Would you…” She has no looking glass, and she would not offer him one if she did. They neither of them want to see themselves clearly. “Would you like to touch it?”

He purses his lips, deciding. Then he lifts his hand and rakes his fingers back, from his high forehead to the nape of his neck.

“Goodness,” he says faintly. “It’s…it’s very different.”

She puts the scissors down. She must clean this mess away, so as to not inconvenience Fingon, but first she wants to savor the rest of this moment. She clasps her hands in front, and looks steadily at him.

“I will have a little water,” he says shyly, when his exploration has ceased. “And something to wash my face. I’ve made a mess of it, haven’t I?”

Estrela lets her moment go. She fetches him water, and he drinks it without help.

She fetches him a drenched wash-rag, too, but he does not take it from her hand. He merely shuts his eyes and lifts his face to her.

She holds her breath. Then she washes his face.

“Now you’ve done it all,” he says quietly, when it is over. “Thank you.”

“I was glad to,” she says. “To be of use, is something—” She stops, floundering. “Sometimes I think I no longer understand what it means to carve out—to become someone new. I have to remember who I was, and what I thought was important. I must see if any of it is important yet. But you’ll think I’m rambling.”

“No,” he says. “No, I understand. Or—I think I should understand, in time, if I have half your spirit.”

“You have at least had all the time we hoped for this business,” she says, flustered under his gentle scrutiny. “Maglor and Fingon have not returned.”

“No, they have not. I do hope Macalaure hasn’t pitched himself into the lake. He’s a wanderer, but when he’s thinking in words and music notes, he doesn’t always look to see where his feet are going.”

She smiles at his profound fondness.

“He has survived all this time.”

“Yes.” A shadow falls. He pushes himself to his feet, abruptly, and shudders like a big dog shaking itself after coming out the water. “Do you know if there’s a fresh shirt, lying about?”

She turns swiftly to the basket that Caranthir deposited in the morning, but which no one thought to sort on Christmas Eve, busy as it was.

“Here’s one,” she says, and then the door bursts open.

It isn’t Fingon, or Maglor.

It’s Celegorm.

When Celegorm is surprised (Estrela has learned), he is quiet at first. His face is unreadable as he shuts the door behind him.

Russandol has one hand on the back of the chair, keeping himself stable. “Celegorm,” he says, and Estrela can hear the hesitant question in the spoken name. “I didn’t know you’d…”

“Your hair,” says Celegorm. Still, it is impossible to know what he is thinking. “She cut your hair?”

“I asked her to.” Russandol’s fingers drum a light rhythm against the wood. Then, with a small smile, “She didn’t even use a bowl.”

Celegorm’s face breaks into half a grin in return. Estrela lets out her breath silently. Approval, from a brother whose approval Russandol craves.

“Scraps itch something fierce, though,” Russandol says. All his attention is trained on his brother now—as it should be. “Help me out of this shirt?”

“Of course,” Celegorm says, striding forward. He undoes the buttons easily while Russandol braces himself with his hand on Celegorm’s upper arm. Celegorm helps Russandol shrug the shirt off, and uses it, wadded up, to dust the bits of hair from his neck and shoulders. Then, without looking at her, he takes the shirt Estrela offers him and quickly shrouds his brother’s shoulders in it before he helps him with the sleeves.

“Came to ask you something,” Celegorm says.

“What’s amiss?”

“Nothing. Just wondered if…well, if you thought your friend Gwindor would be glad to acquire a few odds and ends that we’ve got lying about.”

“What kind of odds and ends?”

“Throwing stars. A knife that Curufin made me without seeing if I liked the weight.” He shrugs. “Nothing remarkable.”

“Christmas gifts. For Gwindor.” Russandol smiles. “Yes, Celegorm. I think he’d be glad to acquire them. What do you think, Estrela?”

Estrela thinks a weapon is not a gift, but that Gwindor is too practical to shy from every violence. “It is very kind of you, Celegorm.”

Celegorm rocks back on his heels, well-pleased. Then he surveys Russandol, in his fresh shirt, and grins fully, this time. “You look pretty grand, Maitimo. I want to ruffle it.”

“No.”

“Come off it. Just one ruffle.”

“Lord help me,” says Russandol. “You may ruffle it _once_. If you’re tall enough to reach.”

“I’m two inches shy of you! _Maybe_ three!”

Estrela watches, rapt, as Russandol makes a show of stooping over the back of the chair. Celegorm runs both hands through his hair, as he often does to Huan.

“Content?” Russandol asks. He is smiling.

“Yes,” Celegorm says. “You feel like a dandelion. But you shouldn’t be out of bed so long.”

Russandol says, in the bed again, “I’m coming to dinner tomorrow. So everyone tells me.”

“Oh, stuff that. Huan and I will steal the ham and have it in here with you.” Celegorm’s eyes flash devilishly at this—and Estrela expects he is quite equal to such a plot—but then he subsides. “Very well, then. I’ll be off. Just wanted to ask you about the knives.”

Then he is gone. Russandol heaves a sigh that does not, for once, sound pained.

Estrela has no broom. She sweeps up the clippings with a rag, leaving Russandol to his thoughts, until Fingon returns.

Fingon is not so taciturn as Celegorm.

“Good gracious me!” he exclaims. “Maitimo, you didn’t say—”

“It would have spoilt the surprise,” says Russandol dryly, though Estrela thinks he is pleased. “And what if it had turned out all wrong?”

“It didn’t.”

“Really? Does it look well? Estrela is biased.” He winks at her, sidelong.

Fingon steps closer, his hands behind his back, examining with almost the same expression that he wears when he is stitching a wound. “I think it is very neat and most becoming.”

“ _Very neat_ and _most becoming_. There is praise indeed. Estrela, forgive me for making it sound as if I doubted you. I didn’t. I only had to elicit my physician’s honest opinion.”

He is…if not happy, he is almost at peace. She has done all that she can. She thinks she will go away and cry now herself, comfortable in the knowledge that he is free of at least one small and nagging torment. Estrela smiles, and tells him to sleep soundly, and when she is on the other side of the door, she whispers, “Merry Christmas, Russandol,” as her tears begin to fall.


End file.
